Garibaldi apologized for the parrot's bad manners by saying, "He is very unruly, but he talks well"; and added, with a rusty smile, "Better than his master."
"I don't agree with you," I said. "I can understand you, whereas I can't even tell what language he is speaking."
"He comes from Brazil, and was given to me by a lady."
"Does he only speak Brazilian?" I asked.
"Oh no, he can speak a little Italian; he can say 'Io t'amo' and 'Caro mio'."
"That shows how well the lady educated him. Will he not say 'Io t'amo' for me? I should so love to hear him."
But, in spite of tender pleadings, the parrot refused to do anything but scream in his native tongue.
Garibaldi talked Italian in a soft voice with his friend and French to us. He asked a few questions as to our nationality, and made some other commonplace remarks. When I told him I was an American he seemed to unbend a little, and said, "I like the Americans; they are an honorable, just, and intelligent people."
He must have read admiration in my eyes, for he "laid himself out" (so his friend said) to be amiable. Amiability toward strangers was evidently not his customary attitude.
He went so far as to give me his photograph, and wrote "Miss Moulton" on it with a hand far from clean; but it was the hand of a brave man, and I liked it all the better for being dirty. It seemed somehow to belong to a hero. I think that I would have been disappointed if he had had clean hands and well-trimmed finger-nails. On our taking leave of him he conjured up a wan smile and said, very pleasantly, giving us his ink- stained hand, "A rivederci."